Former soldier jailed for sex attacks on two women – including off-duty police officer

After slapping her bottom as she travelled on an escalator, Dylan Thompson, 34, joked his assault was “just a bit of fun”.

The officer revealed her identity to Thompson, of Anderson Street, South Shields, and detained him until back-up arrived, a court heard.

Minutes earlier, he had carried out a copycat assault on another woman as she stood at a ticket machine.

He also spat at a uniformed officer who later carried out his train station arrest, narrowly missing her face.

Thompson struck just three months after being jailed for an attack at the office of South Shields’ MP Emma Lewell-Buck and assaulting a coffee shop worker.

He is now starting a fresh six-month prison term after admitting the train station assaults in a hearing at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court.

Prosecutor Jonathan Stirland said: “The first woman was at a ticket machine when she felt someone slap her bottom.

“She turned around and it was the defendant, who had been standing behind her.”

Mr Stirland said the woman made her way to an escalator “where she saw him do the same to another female”.

He added: “The second woman was on the escalator when she felt someone slap her bottom.

“He said, ‘It’s just a bit of fun’. She identified herself as a police officer and detained him at the top of the escalator.

“Police have attended. He has become aggressive and attempted to spit directly in an officer’s face.”

In a victim statement, the first woman said it was “horrendous that a male could do this to me and another female in broad daylight”.

She added: “I didn’t want to believe what had happened. I feel violated.”

And the off-duty officer said in her statement: “This man has no right to take my sense of security away from me.

“Although I’m a police officer, I’m still a single female travelling alone. I won’t let people like him win.”

Thompson pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual assault on a female, common assault of an emergency worker and failing to surrender to custody.

The serial offender, who has 37 previous convictions, was jailed for 22 weeks in February.

It came after he admitted spitting at a plastic partition and hitting a window with a garden ornament at Ms Lewell-Buck’s South Shields headquarters on November 16.

He was also convicted of attacking a security guard at a coffee shop in Darlington while attempting to steal a £4 drink five days earlier.

David Forrester, defending, said the sex attacks painted an incorrect picture of Thompson, who he described as “vulnerable”.

He said his client had no history of such crimes and his actions were “unthinking as opposed to deliberate”.

District Judge Zoe Passfield jailed Thompson for 26 weeks for the spitting offence and for 12 weeks each for the sex attacks, to run concurrently.

She also jailed him for seven days each for breaching post-sentence supervision, admitted at an earlier hearing, and for failing to surrender to custody, also concurrently.

He was placed on the sex offenders register for seven years and ordered to pay £100 compensation to each of his three victims.

There were no court costs.